Royal Harlot (39 page)

I went to each of the two small beds in turn: Anne, as eldest, slept alone, curled on her side with one hand beneath her cheek, while Charles and Henry lay snug together like two round-bellied puppies, their lips parted for their soft baby sighs and their thick black lashes feathered over their cheeks.

Last I went to the cradle with tiny Charlotte. As I bent over her, she sensed my presence and stirred. Her eyes fluttered open, not awake, yet not asleep. I swept her from her cradle into my arms and held her tight, swaying to calm her and myself, while she made the sweet snuffling sounds that new babes make to settle themselves. At last her breathing grew calm and she relaxed back into sleep, and gently, so gently, I laid her back in her cradle, tucking her coverlet around her. I patted her tiny rounded back one last time, my eyes filling with tears, and finally returned to my own rooms.

I stood before the tall window while Wilson fussed about me, taking away the torn cloak, begging me to sit. I was shaking now, so hard I could not stop, and once the tears had begun I let them course down my cheeks unchecked. I’d known I was hated and reviled, and I could bear that, but the thought that my darling children could be made to suffer for my sake was beyond bearing. I would have to do better for them. I would have to think less of my own pleasures and more of their futures.

“Barbara!” Charles rushed toward me, his expression an odd mix of relief and anger. “Thank God you are safe.”

I turned toward him and fainted in his arms.

Chapter Seventeen

WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON
February 1 6 6 5

 
I’d never seen the Banqueting House so full of candles, nor so crowded with brilliant company, but then there’d been no such grand masque at court as this one in my lifetime, not since the old king’s time thirty-five years before. The masque was in celebration of Candlemas, a holy day commemorating the purification of the Virgin Mary and the first presentation of the infant Jesus Christ to the elders in the temple, a feast said to be much favored by Her Majesty.

There were many whispers as to why exactly a barren queen should so enjoy a feast in honor of the Virgin Mother’s purification after giving birth, an event that Her Majesty herself seemed doomed never to experience, but that was only the second mystery of the day. The first one was how a celebration of a joyful birth and delivery had somehow been transformed into a bellicose glorification in favor of a war with the Dutch.

The theme of the masque was to show how the various enemies of England and her king would be vanquished. As most such allegorical entertainments were, this masque was an astounding confluence of specially composed music and dances, dubious classical references, elaborate costumes and settings, and theatrical devices like small explosions and otherworldly messengers made to “fly” on ropes overhead. The spectacle of the entertainment mattered far more than its making any sense, and no one in the audience expected more.

Like every other fair lady at the court, I took part in the masque. I was granted the prominent role as Venus (who else could I have played, I ask you?), determined to urge my lover Mars to glory on the field of battle. My costume was described as “antique,” though in style it looked back only so far as the masques designed long ago for the Queen Mother and the king’s father. It featured a low, tight bodice and full sleeves sewn over with sparkling sequins, a tall feathered helmet, and short breeches beneath a shorter skirt, the better to display my legs in golden stockings. Once it was known that I would wear breeches in my costume, all the other ladies had clamored for the same, eager for this excuse to show their own limbs to advantage. First among them was Frances Stuart: a year older at seventeen, negligibly wiser and markedly taller, but still no more willing to let the king have what he most wished. Not that I cared overmuch for their squabbling. The king had already declared I’d the most elegant legs of any lady at court, and I welcomed the chance to shame any rival, even the ever-foolish Frances.

I did, too, before an audience filled with courtiers, ambassadors, and other visitors from abroad. The Banqueting House, where such masques had always been held, back to the time of the old king, was close with such a crowd, the scores of candles necessary to light our production giving off more heat as well, but I didn’t care. The crowd admired me, and the candles made my jewels sparkle all the more. As the music swelled one final time, I held my hands gracefully out from my sides, turned twice with surpassing grace, and sank into my final bow. Applause burst around us in a wave, and the king himself came to raise me up.

“Handsomely done, Barbara, well done indeed,” he said, handing me a glass of wine to refresh myself. Once the scenery and extra candles of the masque’s makeshift stage were cleared away, he’d have to open the night’s ball by dancing with the queen, but for these few moments he chose to be with me. “If that didn’t persuade the last malcontents to challenge the Dutch, then nothing shall.”

I laughed and kissed him. “I doubt that idle trumpery persuaded anyone to so much as rise from bed, let alone go to war.”

“Now you sound like Clarendon himself,” Charles said and took my arm. “Walk with me, my dear.”

I curled my fingers into his and let him lead me into one of the hallways, the curled plume on my helmet bobbing as I walked. No one would follow or join us; they knew to respect the king’s privacy when he was with me. In the past, I would have expected him to find us some shadowed corner, press me against a convenient wall, and press home a satisfying advantage. But now his mind was full of other, more weighty matters, and he was as likely to use me as an excuse to escape the rest of the court to talk as for a quick jig beneath my skirts.

“You’ve no right to put me in with Clarendon, sir,” I protested as we walked. “It’s not that I believe the Dutch to be right, but that I cannot see how any war can be of benefit to England now. The country’s scarce recovered from Cromwell’s foolishnesses.”

“But this is different, Barbara,” Charles said confidently. “This will only help England.”

“ ‘Only help,’ ” I repeated, unconvinced. For months it seemed that the gentlemen would speak of nothing else but the glories to be gained by war, boasting and strutting about and rattling their swords in a most tedious fashion. Even the gentlemen who met regularly at King Street—Arlington, Fitzhardinge, Coventry, Admiral Lord Sandwich, of course, and the others—spoke of little but which members they’d persuaded over to the cause of war, or who had promised to vote funds for another new warship. “Is there anything more costly to a country than a war?”

“But this war would be fought at sea, not on English soil,” Charles protested, warming to his argument. “Our navy is unrivaled, Barbara. Parliament has always supported the navy without question, granting them all the funds they’ve required for ships and sailors. You should hear my brother speak of what they’ve accomplished at Portsmouth this last year, or better yet, go down there with me to see for yourself. Then you’d be convinced.”

“Oh, yes, smelly boats and noisy cannons,” I said dryly. “How fascinating. Though I suppose the handsome sailor boys scampering up and down the rigging would be a fair sight to see. Until you must tell their mamas and sweethearts that they’ve died so you could feel superior to the Prince of Orange.”

He stopped beside a window, gazing out across the snow-covered park and London beyond, the moon and the stars bright in the night sky over the sleeping city. It was hard to imagine a more peaceful scene, or one more at odds with the kind of carnage and destruction he was proposing.

“I’d never start a war for so idle a reason, my dear,” he said softly. “I’d not do that to my people. But the Dutch can’t be allowed to go on like they have, attacking English merchant ships as they please and plundering our colonies and forts in Africa, the Indies, America—that kind of impunity must be stopped, Barbara, before they sail their ships up the very Thames.”

“That
would
be wrong.” I sighed and slipped my hands inside his doublet. Beneath my palm I felt his heartbeat, strong and sure, and yet a reminder, too, of how tenuous and fragile life could be. “But I cannot help but think of how we both lost our fathers to war, and how close you, too, came to being killed, again and again, before you’d a chance to reach your prime. What if you’d perished before I’d met you? What would my life have been without you in it?”

He smiled. “Mine wouldn’t have been much without you, either, and considerably shorter as well.”

“I’m not jesting, sir,” I said softly, drawing him closer. “Life is full of peril. For women, it’s childbirth, but for men, it’s war. I know as king you’ll not face the guns yourself, but when I think of our little sons—”

“My dear, they’re still in the nursery,” he said fondly. “They’re in no danger.”

“Not now, no,” I admitted. “But their world, their lives, are so uncertain.”

“But this will help make their lives more certain,” he insisted. “Not only will England be stronger for standing up to the Dutch, but their country will feel happier for it. You’ll see. A few victories and London will feel like the old days.”

By the “old days,” I knew he now no longer meant his father’s reign but those first glorious months when he was new returned from exile, and it seemed his people could not lavish enough love and regard upon him. It had only been five years since he’d returned to London, yet already it seemed further in the past. That kind of boundless joy hadn’t been the temper of the country for a long time now; I’d only to think of the hatred that washed around me to understand that. Since I’d been attacked in the park by the disguised gentlemen—who of course had never been identified or punished—I’d become more cautious of my own safety and no longer went abroad unattended. If challenging the Dutch at sea could change that ill will for the better, then I could scarce find fault.

“What of France and Spain?” I asked, though I must admit that this question was one of strictest curiosity. The careful balance between our four great countries—England, France, Holland, and Spain—was something that endlessly concerned a great many wise heads in Europe. If the English went to war with the Dutch, then the French and the Spanish worried over whose side they should take, or more perplexing, whose side the other would choose as well.

Because of such concerns, both the Spanish and the French ambassadors in London pursued me, hoping in return I’d offer some hint of Charles’s inclinations, or better yet that I’d persuade him in their individual favor. I made sure to receive my garnish for these, my “incense.” The ambassadors lavished me with costly gifts, held suppers and entertainments in my honor, and best of all made subtle payments of moneys to my accounts. My old friend Fitzhardinge, newly made Earl of Falmouth, still held the privy purse, which meant that any gifts or allowances from the king came to me discreetly through that quarter, without anyone else being the wiser.

Wilson kept careful tallies for me, as she did with all the little favors and rewards it was in my power to dispense. It was all part of the game of “courtship,” and one practiced by nearly every person, great and small, within the palace’s walls.

And one, of course, that Charles understood better than anyone else, for what else did a king do but bargain with Parliament and foreign powers?

“You know perfectly well how an English war would affect France and Spain, my dear,” he said now with a single cocked brow. “Likely you’ve heard all the advantages for each side more thoroughly than I have myself.”

I smiled up at him. “I won’t pretend otherwise. All of the gentlemen can be most persuasive regarding their respective causes.”

“I trust the incense they offer you is sufficient to keep your interest?”

I tipped my head back, ready to be kissed if he so wished it. “Ah, sir, you know me so very well.”

“As you know me.” He sighed, his hands settling familiarly around my waist. “I can’t fault you for picking their pockets, if they’re going to dangle them before you so you hear the coins jingle. God knows I’m as generous as I can be with you, Barbara, but even with Falmouth at the privy purse, I have my limits.”

“If I ask for more, it’s for the sakes of the children,” I protested. “Their welfare must come first. They are your flesh and blood, sir, and as such must be raised with certain expectations.”

He grunted. “Am I to believe that little Charlotte is the one wearing that last diamond ring, the one that Master Leroy’s bill valued at two thousand pounds?”

“You told me I could choose something to cheer myself after those men came upon me in the park last autumn.” I shrugged winningly, and looked up at him from beneath my lashes. The ring was most handsome, and sure to hold its value over time to pass along to my daughters. “Besides, if I’m to be at your side, sir, I must keep up appearances.”

“You
appear
lovely enough to me without all the baubles.” He sighed again, his hands sliding more purposefully from my waist over my hips and back again. “That’s another thing about this war, you know. Prize money from the sale of any fat Dutch merchantmen we capture. Nothing an army can do in the field will rival that. Most of the funds will go to the navy treasury, of course, but a nice part of the pie comes to me, to do with as I please.”

“As you please, sir?” I chuckled and leaned into him, pressing my breasts against his chest as I slipped my hands into the back of his breeches. “Or as I please you?”

Yet he didn’t smile the way I’d expected, not at all.

“I know what you are to me, Barbara,” he said instead with care. “You needn’t try to put a price on it. But if you wish to have your lodgings at Hampton Court refurbished again, and a new coach in the spring, as well as more diamonds for, ah, Charlotte and Anne, then you’d do well to cheer as loudly as anyone else for the victories and glories of this little war.”

My smile turned more wistful. “You sound very confident, sir.”